Security

To Bad Aibling: train safety in Europe

After the disaster in Bavaria is the issue of train safety is again being discussed. In the EU there are no uniform Standards. The “ETCS System” is designed to change that. We explain it and look on Zugunglücke in Europe.

The
Train wreck of Bad Aibling, the ten deaths, has confidence in the running of trains is shaken. Many politicians expressed their horror and their condolences, such as, for example, France’s Prime Minister Manuel Valls and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. “I regret the tragic loss of lives in this train accident in southern Germany,” said EU Verkehrskommissarin Violeta Bulc on Tuesday.

Generally, train travel in Europe is still a very safe way to travel. According to EU statistics, there are from year to year, less accidents. Their number has increased from 1990 to 2012, to 70 per cent. To do this, a number of technical improvements contributed.

The investigations about what exactly to the collision of the two trains at Bad Aibling led, take to

For Example, Signalling. But unfortunately, there are currently no uniform system for all trains on Europe’s railway tracks. From country to country, it is so different, how exactly the emergency braking of a train works, if a Haltesignal fails. For example, this is a question that is also at the scene of the collision in Bad Aibling have played a role. These safety systems have historically vary at the country level developed and not just EU-wide.

The objective is for all rail networks, the same solutions to develop and the running of trains in all EU member States is equal to make sure. This is the European rail traffic management system European Train Control System (ETCS).

A cheaper Software as a solution?

The ETCS should the different systems to replace the railway service in the member States rules and do not fit.

The basic idea of a uniform system was decades ago. With the ETCS, there are already a single European specification, but also lots of national specificities. A common Standard in all trains to integrate from Rome to Stockholm, and Lisbon to Bucharest driving, is a difficult and expensive undertaking.

A team of experts that was involved, the German Fraunhofer Institute for Open communication systems (FOKUS). Its researchers are in a project of Deutsche Bahn involved in the development of a freely-available Software for ETCS.

“OpenETCS” is meant the comprehensive introduction of the single Zugsicherheitssystems cheaper and less expensive to make. There are still no trains with ETCS equipped in such a way, that you for all the relevant routes in Europe without restrictions. The developers of the “openETCS” hope that their freely accessible Software in all new trains will be installed.

Zugunglücke in Europe

The greater goal is to have as many Zugunglücke as possible on Europe’s rails to prevent. In the past few years, there have been some disasters with many dead.

At Eschede derailed the ICE and crashed into a bridge, the train partially has buried

The
worst train accident in recent German history happened in the Northern capital of Germany. At the 3. June 1998 derailed here a ICE due to a broken Radreifens. The train jumped with 200 kilometers per hour off the tracks. 101 people on Board died.

On 6. February 2000 derailed a train from Basel on the way to Amsterdam, just in front of the station of Brühl in Germany. Nine passengers died, and almost 150 were injured. In the Spanish town of Chinchilla 19 people died, as at 3. June 2003 a passenger train with a freight train collided.

In Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain lost 79 people their lives, as your train on the 24. July 2013 derailed. More than half of the 222 people on Board were injured when the train from the tracks and jumped – with a speed that is more than twice as high was as the allowed 80 km per hour. The train driver was convicted of negligent killing the accused.

What or who, for the collision in Bad Aibling was responsible, and whether human error played a role, it is still not clear. After a few Medienberichtenn it is called though, it was “human error” have been backed up, the date is not. The Deutsche Bahn commented on reports not.